Throughout my life I have had a passion for art, it has been something I have used to escape or for fun. I am now lucky enough for it to be my job, I work as a freelance artist as well as being employed for London transport as an digital artist. this is an extremely different job as I create digital maps, but it has given me invaluable experience in a work environment. as well as working and completely commissions I am working on my portfolio, improving my 3D skills, I hope that once I have enough experience and my skills have developed that I am able to work as a 3D artist in the film and TV industry,
Due to the fact I have been drawing all throughout my life there has obviously been improvement, my drawings now are significantly better than when I was 4 (which is to be expected as I draw most days). In this blog I will be focusing on recent years rather than going that far back, some of these improvements are small and others are complete day and night improvements. All of these improvements have been accomplished with hard work, passion and determination. I will be comparing all aspects of my art apart from moving images such as my animation work.
Much like most people my introduction into art was pencil and paper, this developed as I studied fine art in both GCSE and A-Level. At university I studied Animation and VFX but within the course fine art and traditional practices such as life drawing, Design and concept art is extremely important. Throughout my 3D journey my traditional artwork has been invaluable. This is due to the fact that when I draw I aim to mimic it as best and as realistically as I can, I analyse the image by looking at the texture, light, muscle, form etc... for less rendered images such as life drawings I still analyse all these things and create an impression of this.
The image below is a comparison of 2 drawings. In 2018 I drew the image on the left, during this time I was not confident enough to do paid commissions and I was always scared to give away my work for fear it was not good enough. This was the first drawing I spend 10+ hours on and gave as a gift. As you can see this is a black and white coloured pencil drawing of a king Charles cavalier spaniel, at the time I was beaming with pride of this drawing and my auntie (whom I gave the drawing to) loved it and it is still in her house. The drawing on the right again is a king Charles cavalier spaniel but this was completed in 2023 and the medium was coloured pencils. This drawing was a commission and I actually completed 3 drawings for the same client, this was a huge confidence boost as the client kept asking for more images and therefore loved my work. I think having these two images side by side shows the significant improvement in both confidence and skill.
There is a lot that I have managed to improve over the years but I am going to focus on a few examples within these images. First of all the base drawing, the initial sketch of a drawing is the most important part as this is where the detail is built from. I have a few approaches when it comes to drawing, the first being sketching this is the approach I take for drawings that are not commissions as I just freely build the image normally blocking out shapes using circles and refining the details from there. however I do not do this for commissioners this is due to the fact that when I complete a commission I aim for 'realism' and I therefore need to draw every hair and every detail as accurately as possible. in order to do this I use the grid method, this allows me to accurately map out the image and sketch every detail. in 2018 i used the grid method for this drawing but I didn't have a lot of experience with this, as this was an A3 drawing and my reference image with the grid was A4 I didn't have a lot of experience sizing up and this meant that some elements are out of place such as the right eye. as well as this, now for my drawings I spend a lot more time mapping out the specific sections where the colours meet.
Secondly and probably the largest difference in these images is the medium in which I used, in 2018 I was studying art and therefore needed to use multiple mediums within my portfolio but I was most comfortable using graphite pencils and working in black and white. Obviously using tonal values is extremely important and this is something I use in my digital art but I now rarely work using just pencils. I really enjoy working with colour, I love working out what colours a drawing requires and I love blending colours together to mirror the colour required. Although the 2023 drawing has a lot of black in the image, that is not the case all the sections with black is actually built up of multiple colours mainly greys, browns and orange tones. Although this is a clear difference it took a lot of time and practice to develop a system and confidence for colour and drawing, the first pencil drawing I completed was awful but since then I have been able to learn whether this is through practice or tutorials.
Although these are not the same dog (they are the same breed) I would like to compare something extremely similar and the improvements I have been able to achieve. This is the nose, a dogs nose is most commonly black, wet (therefore shiny/catches the light) and consists of multiple textures and tones. the image on the left shows my attempt at this, I remember drawing this and spending hours on the nose, this may have been the portion I spent the most time on. as you can see it is not very detailed and although I have the tonal changes the depth and detail is not there, when compared with the 2023 version you can see on the left of the nose it is lighter and almost blends in with the fur on the nose and the right side is almost pitch black as it is in the shadow. This depth allows the image to have more information and detail. having this side by side comparison of both of these images is really interesting and shows how much I have improved, this is something as an artist you don't see when your drawing its only something you notice after when you compare and see the differences.
As a commission artist you are not often asked to draw things that are 'out of the box' it is normally animals such as cats and dogs which are all extremely beautiful and fun to draw, but it is a real treat when your asked to draw something like this. below I have included an example of my most recent commission (at time of posting) this is of a perch, this is a colourful green and orange fish - the image on the left. This drawing was a A3 coloured pencil drawing that took almost 30 hours to complete.
When I draw for fun I often complete colourful drawing of animals such as parrots, frogs and the example on the right fish. this is due to the fact that I love colour, I love anything bright and I love the natural colour of the world for example these bright creatures. I was therefore extremely excited to start this commission although I knew it would be a challenge as I had drawn a fish before. the element I was most concerned to start was the scales as they are very detailed and vey cohesive. as you can see in my 2021 drawing the scales are a bit all over the place, there is no change in scale and there is no uniformity within the scales there are a bit messy. obviously these are two completely different fish but they have similar elements that we can compare. although these drawing were not completes too far apart in terms of time I do think they are completely different in terms of approach and detail.
In 2021 I completed this drawing simply by sketching and didn't use a grid, as you can see there is a lot less detail on elements such as the face and although the tail is the main element I do think the scales and the face let this drawing down. whereas in 2023 I used a grid, I mapped out the main shape and mapped out a guide for the scales, I didn't sketch in every scale but I did map in lines narrower at the tail and wider near the face (this was in line with the reference photo) I also added details such as the stripes and things so I knew where to start the dark elements within the drawing. like I mentioned I spent a lot of time and care in elements such as the face in 2023 I spend 10 hours on the face and in 2021 it will have been more like 30 minutes, this is due to the fact that I now know more about my medium and how to use the pencils to create detail.
Although these drawings are more similar than the previous example I think that it is still equally as clear the improvements that I have made. I know that if I continue to practice and evolve that I will continue to make improvements to my work. I hope to get more commissions like this where I can be challenged in a completely different way!
This example is more of a bit of fun rather than a serious comparison of work. in 2012 I completed my first animal portrait, this was a tiger it took me 4 hours and is simply a sketch, there is no rendering or detail. in 2020 I completed another drawing of a tiger, this was one of the first drawings I did using coloured pencils and as you can see I didn't really know what I was doing, I didn't know whether I needed a background in order to make the colours pop and I therefore acrylic washed the background. this drawing took around 6 hours and isn't my best piece but it allowed me to start my journey into coloured pencil drawings.
Something I have noticed throughout my personal art journey is that there is constant improvement whether this is in technique, talent, approach, medium, timescale etc... but you cant always see it. If I was to compare this tiger drawing from 2012 to the king Charles cavalier spaniel I drew in 2018 I know that there were hundreds of hours of practice in between those drawings but the jump in improvement from 2012 -2017 is not that large. both drawings are graphite pencil drawings and they are both not super detailed. the jump in improvement in recent years such as from 2020-2023 is larger than 2012-2020, there was less time but the difference is I am spending more time on each piece and adapting and learning as I go.
While at university I was introduced to digital drawing, this is something I had never really thought about and I had no prior experience in this.
This example shows my first digital drawing, as I was practicing colouring and getting used to how the tablet and the screen communicated I traced the outline of a rose and attempted to colour it in. I had no experience in the method and I didn't know how to use the different brushes. I used the smudge tool and opacity tool and on a single layer coloured in the whole image. this may be an approach to digital drawing but now I have more experience I know it isn't the best approach. The digital drawing on the right was completed in 2022 since the first I have purchased a Wacom tablet, sue to the fact I have a foundation in traditional art this made it a lot easier to draw and I can therefore use it more like when I draw normally. I still have a lot to learn but I was able to complete this simple study and colour it using an oil brush. this digital method works a lot more like a traditional painting as the layers of oil blend together and as you add more detail and lower the brush size the drawing gets more and more refined until it looks how you want it to look.
My exploration into digital drawing is far from over and I hope to continue to learn and create bigger more complex pieces, such as characters and scenes but for now I am focusing on study drawings and further developing my workflow.
While at university as I previously mentioned I studied animation and VFX I specialised in the 3D pipeline but as a part of my course we were expected to work on 2D films. in the first term I thought we had to provide a 3D service fir the films and I therefore worked on simulations and elements much like that. I later realised that I could utilise my traditional art experience and work as a background artist or as a concept artist. I have multiple examples of this but I have chosen 3 examples.
In 2020 I completed this background drawing, as You can see it is extremely simple, I didn't know how to do anything. I initially sketched out this drawing on paper, took a picture of it and traced it on photoshop. I used a black brush that didn't have any kind of pen pressure and outlined the drawing. I had no idea how to blend, how to colour and how to design a scene, the scene itself is completely front on and is ugly and abrupt. As you can see I attempted to vignette the edges of the image and simply painted this on, this can be done in that was but it is not neat and does not look good! this project was a real learning process for me and I genuinely struggled. a year later I worked as a background artist on multiple films and I learnt a lot, the background team gave tutorials and showed us how to complete a background in the style of the film as well as explaining the correct colour pallets, brushes and techniques to create the background. I thoroughly enjoyed working on 2D backgrounds and was a nice relaxing break from the 3D work I had been doing at the same time. The top right image shows a background from the student short film I worked on 'Gone Home' this was really fun to draw and I learnt a lot, when I was asked to complete this I was asked to hand in a tonal version first, this meant that I was first asked to draw a black and white version. lighting was extremely important within this film and this therefore needed to be correct before the colouring began.
as I mentioned before I have a lot to learn in terms of digital painting and digital artwork but this is something I enjoy and something i see improvement in already!
3D modelling is my passion, this is the area that I want to work in and this is the thing I love doing the most. it may be difficult to see improvement for most people but for 3D artists the differences in these images are completely obvious.
I started modelling in 2019, when I choose my course this is what I knew I wanted to learn and I therefore spent a lot of my spare time practicing and learning more. I continue to learn and develop my skills in the hopes that I am able to get a job within the film and TV industry. The image on the left was the first model I was extremely proud, this was completed at the end of my first year at university and is a vase of lily's. Now although I completely appreciate this model I know it isn't very good... there are a lot of differences between these images but I am going to list the most obvious and the ones that are the most clear within the images.
First of all the modelling and topology of the image, when I started to learn about maya I didn't really know what I was doing, and although I have been using this software for almost half a decade I still know there is loads more to learn as it is such a detailed and powerful software! I created one petal, this was then duplicated for every other petal, that is not a problem but if I was to pick apart the petals, they are too thick and therefore not realistic, the way that they meet at the bottom is just like they are floating and stabbing into the stem and this is not realistic at all. although this is a great first attempt at organic modelling the model is just not how it should be and it is clear that this was not something I had a lot of experience doing. whereas if you compare this to the violin model, when I was producing this I made sure that the topology was clean and that the model flowed and formed how it would in the real world. I really thought about how each element would fit together and how I would model this, I used a variety of techniques whether this was quad drawing or extruding I created each element and formed them to produce a cohesive image and model.
As well as the modelling something that is clearly different and something I have improved on is the texture of the assets. When I modelled the flower we hadn't yet been introduced to texturing and I asked a teacher one studio support time (this was a portion of the week where we worked on our projects and had a technician in the room if we had any questions). he showed me how to UV unwrap (he showed me the auto unwrap tool as well as the plain based UV tool) and I simply clicked each element and auto unwrapped this. as you can imagine this caused all sorts of problems as it meant that the 'texture' was stretched in areas and it wasn't very clean. for the texture itself I again had no idea and simply pasted the images onto the lambert and this resulted in a very grey and washed out image. I was extremely proud of this and I was even asked my the university if this could be shown to the prospective students via the prospectus this was an honour and I was so proud! As you can see the image created in 2022 has a completely different look in terms of texture, this was created on substance painter and rendered using Arnold. unlike the lily I UV unwrapped this model properly, the UV unwrap took me around 3 days as there were so many assets within this and I was completing this model in-between other university work. I followed the workflow of applying an AISS to each surface that required a different texture, this was then imported into substance painter and I created each texture with multiple amounts of detail. looking at the textures specifically side by side is very interesting to me as I think they look completely different and I am so proud of how much I have been able to improve in such a short period of time. I know that improvement takes years, as I have shown through my art, and I am so proud that I have been able to do this in just a few years.
The final element I would like to mention is the lighting and the rendering of the images. in 2019 I had no idea how to render, I had to ask my teacher to render this for me. I had no idea how the settings worked even for a simple render. rendering is a lot of trail and error, back in 2019 I didn't know that the render view element in maya was a thing and I therefore just blindly added lights and settings and angles and just set it off to render. this resulted in an unclear and washed out image. obviously have learnt a lot since then and I am able to set up different lights, add atmosphere, change the angles, add shadows and create a more aesthetic image.
3D modelling is something that is ever evolving and I love learning more and improving, I hope to one day work in the film industry as a 3D artist and I hope to one day create realistic assets that can fit within a scene seamlessly.
character modelling,
This is something I have taken a lot of time and care learning. while at university I had the opportunity to learn and practice this skill and when I was 'good enough' I was able to created 3D characters for short films. The images below show the first character model I created in 2020 and the last character model I created before I graduated university. as you can see these models are completely different in both outcome and approach.
the model on the left shows a Zbrush sculpt, this was the first character model I created and I was unsure how to do this. I began by creating a simple base in maya following the character turnaround I designed then exporting this simple OBJ into zbrush. I know now that although you can model from a base model in Zbrush it is better to have more information on this, the 2020 model didn't have any indication of nose, eyes or mouth I simply sculpted this out and made my first character modelling experience very difficult. this did allow me to learn a lot about Zbrush and the different things you can do within the software and for a first attempt with little to no knowledge I am very pleased with how this turned out. however the model on the right was created solely in maya, I think that this model looks a lot better in many ways.
First of all the clothes, when creating the first model I had no idea how to create clothes and I am ashamed to say that I prioritised the face for the hand in and neglected this completely. I simply created a plane, deleted a few faces and dropped it onto the base model using a cloth simulation. this was then added into zbrush and I added some more texture and drooping, but sadly this is just a sheet that has been dropped onto the character. due to the fact that the 2nd character model was created for a student short film it had very specific requirements, i had to attach the clothes to the body, this was because the short film didn't want to use simulations on order to reduce render time. in order to do this I decided to model the base of the character and use the quad draw tool to map out the clothing, this was all made symmetrical and combined with the character model. I think that this looks good, smooth and seamless and I am very pleased with how it turned out.
Secondly the faces, as i previously mentioned I basically made up the first model using reference images (although these went followed exactly as I didn't optimise the reference images within the software). this meant that although the model resembled the images it wasn't perfect and the character had some clear problems. if I was to model a character in zbrush this way again I think it would be more of a warm up exercise or something with more freedom and less specific requirements. I had a lot of problems with the 2021 model, this was not due to the approach or the technical requirements. my issues came from the turnarounds, I was given some very minimally detailed turnaround drawings, this is ok but the director had a specific image and this was difficult to translate as the turnaround was so sparce. I created multiple versions of this model and after many meetings I was given mood boards of photographs of men's noses, eyes, lips etc... and I had to stitch this together. this prosed a problem as I was deleting sections and remodelling them and often the new nose or new mouth didn't fit within the face. this was a very difficult and long process but I think the model that we ended up with is perfect and I am very pleased with it.
finally, the posing. when I first started to model characters I simply rendered them in a T pose or and A pose and that was it as that is what I had modelled. this sort of posing is not aesthetic and doesn't show off what the character is capable of. I decided to begin posing my characters, the character on the right is shown holding a fishing rod and fish, smiling and with his foot raised on the platform. this is a simple pose but because I modelled all these extra elements it adds a dimension to the character and makes the image more interesting.
character modelling is something i enjoy and is my favourite kind of modelling, I did it so much at university that I won an award for this which was an honour! one day I hope t be a character modeller for film and television but for now I continue to learn and develop my skills!
one thing I have learnt about being in a creative industry is that you are never stagnant in your skills, as you draw or as you work you will always try something new whether this was by accident or due to external inspiration. that is something I love about art, as long as I continue to work and learn I will always get better. you can see that about the film industry everything is always moving and growing and developing, a film 2 years ago is completely different to today, the software's and talent have adapted and improved and this will never stop!